Tigers can be said to be one of the most familiar animal images and cultural symbols in Chinese, and people contain complex feelings of love, respect and fear, but in any case, "Tiger Wei" represents a certain high spiritual qi, the so-called "living dragon and living tiger". Therefore, the Year of the Tiger seems to intuitively feel more auspicious, after all, the mouth is good.
However, this is actually a phenomenon that only exists in Chinese cultural circles, from the Western Regions to Western Europe, the culture of the emphasis is on lions rather than tigers: in babylon, Greece and Egypt, there are lions without tigers, so the constellations only have "Leo" and no "Tiger", the Indian jungle is full of tigers, but the zodiac also uses lions instead of tigers, and although Japan has no tigers since ancient times, it is influenced by Chinese culture, and the zodiac is completely consistent with China.
The tiger is arguably one of the most familiar animal images and cultural symbols in Chinese. /pixabay
Today, when talking about the Asian economic miracle, Chinese often refer to the "Four Asian Tigers", such as "Asian tigers" according to the English literal translation. Interestingly, the name Singapore originally meant "Lion City", and is said to have been ravaged by tigers in the early years of the island, but was named after the rulers who built the lion-shaped throne here when the city was founded.
This practice of using the lion as a symbol of kingship is actually influenced by Indian culture, at least not in Chinese culture.
It can be seen that the image and meaning of tigers in different cultures are very different, and in Chinese culture, the understanding of tigers has also been continuously renewed with the changes of the times - in short, in Chinese culture, tigers have gradually changed from the original "sacred beasts" to "pest beasts" and "rare animals".
A worshipped tiger
The ancients worshipped and deified tigers, which is a natural cultural phenomenon, after all, in the mountains and forests of East Asia, this beast is a veritable "king of hundreds of beasts". Therefore, the mountain forest groups in northeast China and south China have had tiger worship since ancient times, which is exactly the same as the distribution of the Northeast tiger and the South China tiger, and it is difficult to say that it is accidental.
Especially for groups whose main livelihood is hunting, mountain gods often appear in the form of tigers. In the ussuri mountains, in the early years, Chinese hunters would build temples in the mountains and forests with stones, write "Lord of the Mountains and Forests", and worship the tiger god. The "mountain gods" offered by the Manchus, that is, the "tiger god" (tiger god), as well as the Hezhe, Evenk, and Orunchun tribes, believe that all the prey and wealth in the mountains are controlled and given to people by the "mountain god" (tiger god), so they have great respect for them. The Orunchun people who hunt for a living still revere tigers as "Noyan", which means king, god, official, or "Ebony Qi" (太爷).
Tigers are the most sacred animal cult of the Altaic-speaking peoples, and "there are almost no hunters among the hunting peoples who hunt tigers". The Russian anthropologist Shi Luguo found that the Tunguska people in the Xiaoxing'an Mountains believed that there were three competing groups in nature—humans, tigers, and bears each had non-aggression areas, so people would never take the initiative to fight tigers.
Siberian tiger. The mountainous and forest tribes of northeast and southern China have had tiger worship since ancient times. /pixabay
In the adjacent northeast of the Korean Peninsula, tiger worship has entered a higher cultural level: it is no longer a mountain god itself, but a human image of the mountain god's retinue, mount, "the mountain god hall must be hung with a depiction of the old man next to the Crouching Tiger, or the old man riding the tiger", "this mountain god has the nature of a comprehensive god who rules and dominates people's production, personnel and other aspects", but the original god energy that belonged to the tiger has been transferred to the humanoid mountain god.
These surviving cultures of tiger worship are very helpful for us to understand Chinese's initial understanding of tigers. Archaeologist Zhang Guangzhi pointed out in "Shang Civilization" that tigers are the hunted animals mentioned from time to time in Yin Shang's records, and that Shang Dynasty art "as a whole is an animal art characterized by various animal faces and various parts of the body of different animals, but the most important thing is the three categories of tigers, cattle and birds". Among the gluttonous patterns of bronze, the tiger is one of the three highest-ranking heavenly beasts juxtaposed with dragons and phoenixes, and most of the ritual vessels in the shape of tigers are of high rank and are used by high-ranking nobles.
Shang Civilization
[United States] by Zhang Guangzhi, translated by Zhang Liangren and Yue Hongbin
Life, Reading, and New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore, 2019-1
Judging from the ceremonial vessels of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, there are roughly three cultural birthplaces of ancient tiger worship: the northeast mountainous area, the Jiangnan mountainous area in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and the mountainous area in the upper reaches of the Jianghan River, which are undoubtedly located on the "edge of China". Later, the "White Tiger" was only a Western divine beast in the universe quadripartite.
Judging from the distribution of tigers in later generations, the Siberian tiger and the South China tiger seem to be mainly located in the northeast and southeast directions of the Central Plains, why is the "white tiger" arranged in the west? This may suggest that the tiger cult that Chinese culture first came into contact with came from the southwestern mountains.
The Yi folk have a saying that "offends the mountain gods, and the tiger and leopard hurt people". The creation myth of the Yi people even believes that it was the tiger that created the universe: "The body of the tiger disintegrates and gives birth to all things, the tiger's hair is scattered in all directions, and the tiger's blood is splashed in all directions... Tiger hair becomes grass and trees, tiger flesh becomes animals, tiger blood becomes rivers, tiger bones become rocks, and tiger eyes become sun, moon, and stars. The Lahu and Xiaoliangshan Yi tribes both have tiger clans, which are called "Lapao" and "Luobo", which both mean "Tiger People". The Naxi and Pumi people also worship the tiger, calling themselves tigers, believing that humans originated from tigers, so the Pumi people like to use "tiger" as a place name and personal name, Lugu Lake is the Meaning of "Tiger Lake" in Pumi.
The tiger is the strongest beast that the ancients encountered while hunting, representing a majestic mystical force/unsplas
The tiger is the strongest beast encountered by the ancients when hunting, is the king of the mountains and forests, represents a majestic mysterious force, "the person who can unite with the tiger, that is, the noble wizard, can become the god king of nature, on the top of the mountain, that is, in the highest realm, to control the power of noble life", so on the bronze often has the figure of the tiger god swallowed, historian Li Xueqin deduced, "swallowing symbolizes the unity of the self and the animal with divinity".
Therefore, in the tomb of the Shang King, the tiger god shape only appears in the royal family ceremonial vessel, which means that the tiger is a special object of worship unique to the royal family, and the place names with "tiger" in the oracle bone are all Shang King hunting areas, but tigers are rarely hunted, and "tigers" are often sacred beasts that pray to them to borrow their divine power.
However, with the rise of the royal power, this kind of divine beast, which was originally regarded as the control of the dead and alive, gradually became a symbol of royal power, "under the impact of the new system and concepts, the belief concept of the dead and living god beast gradually faded, and the tiger image began to be generally regarded as a symbol of the brave and good army", and the "tiger symbol" and the military "tiger ben" that expressed military power in later generations all came from this, and in the "Zhang Shengwen Picture Scroll" of the Dali Kingdom, the warrior wore tiger skin, which also had the same meaning.
Shang Dynasty Fu bird double-tailed bronze tiger. In the Shang Dynasty, the tiger was a special object of worship unique to the royal family.
In the Zhou Dynasty, the image of the tiger god began to change, and there was a heavenly punishment god, who had white hair on his face, tiger claws, and an axe symbolizing torture, which was a transitional form of the transformation of the tiger god into a humanoid god, and the "white tiger" was associated with the West and death, because the tiger god who held life was also the god of death.
The meaning of the tiger god in charge of life later appeared in the form of a powerful god who killed the lord, and the divine energy that helped ascend to heaven (the so-called "cloud from the dragon, the wind from the tiger") was only preserved in Taoist culture. The four marshals of Ma Zhao Wenguan who guard the South Heavenly Gate, among which the mount of Marshal Zhao Gongming (Zhao Xuantan), the god of martial wealth, is the black tiger, and the Daoist priest in "Journey to the West" also has the "Tiger Power Immortal", and the Daoist who can control the tiger god is the strongest in magic.
In this way, in Chinese culture, tigers gradually diverged from the "mountain gods" with mysterious powers: first, as a symbol of royal power, associated with military and bravery; second, as the embodiment of supernatural forces, gradually controlled by wizards, Taoists or humanoid gods. Either way, it means that the tiger, as a mysterious force, has been harnessed by man.
Anthropologist Victor Turner once pointedly pointed out: "For many deep psychologists, identification means replacement." To draw strength from a powerful thing is to weaken it. Thus, when people dress up as tigers, they "unconsciously identify themselves with the forces that deeply intimidate them." ”
With the evolution of culture, the worship of tigers eventually made people turn to borrowing and controlling the mysterious power of the tiger god itself to strengthen people's own strength, which is the beginning of the tiger's disenchantment.
"Tiger Falls in Binh Duong"
The tiger was once one of the most feared sacred beasts, but after a long evolution of one or two thousand years, it was gradually subdued by people, and in the Song Dynasty, there was even a "tiger fighting hero" like Wu Song, for the tiger, it can really be said that "the tiger fell to Pingyang and was bullied by the dog", it has fallen off the altar and become a "harmful beast" in the eyes of the world.
This long process began in the pre-Qin era. After all, the Central Plains culture is mainly an agricultural civilization developed in the plains, unlike the mountain hunting groups, whose livelihood is completely dependent on the gifts of the mountain gods, so in the main body of Chinese culture, the image of the tiger god derived from the worship of mountain beasts is only one of the many sacred beasts in the universe.
By the time of the Qin and Han Dynasties, the tiger god's divine energy range gradually contracted and narrowed, and the tiger image was gradually no longer regarded as a symbol of noble power—the dragon was the exclusive image of the supreme power, and the tiger was demoted to the possession of a soldier or a Taoist.
A light installation of dragons and tigers competing at the Lantern Festival. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the image of the tiger was gradually no longer regarded as a symbol of high power, and the image of the dragon was replaced. /unsplash
Not only that, roughly from the Warring States period, tigers were also secularized into a greedy image, so people called the Qin state "the country of tigers and wolves" at that time. Following this new meaning, a series of negative words were later derived from the Chinese language.
Wen Mengjun's book "Curse Words" found: "Tigers, which are rarely used directly for scolding, often take the characteristics of their fierceness and cruelty, and combine them with other words to form swear words, and the common ones are 'human-faced tiger' and 'smiling tiger'. ”
With the gradual deepening of the development of the south after the Eastern Han Dynasty, the mountain forests as the habitat of tigers have also been destroyed little by little, followed by the continuous intensification of tiger infestation.
As early as the Qin and Han dynasties, the area where tigers were harmed was already very wide, so that there were no tigers in the residence of the Uighurs, and people regarded it as a strange story. In the Middle Ages, tiger plagues occurred in many places, so that an important task of local officials was to stop the tiger plagues.
The Tang Dynasty government attached great importance to the maintenance of the official road, and strictly prohibited the cutting of trees on the sidewalks of the road, but in the southern prefectures and counties where tigers were rampant, the trees within ten steps of the official road must be cut down so that pedestrians could guard against tigers. In the thirteenth year of the Ming Dynasty (1448), Xinghua County (present-day Putian) in Fujian Province was even dismissed and reformed because of the serious tiger disease and epidemic of diseases, and the population was greatly reduced.
Northern Song Dynasty Li Gonglin's "Bian Zhuangzi Thorn Tiger Diagram". Tiger plagues during the Tang and Song dynasties showed the characteristics of both north and south.
A long conflict began between the tiger that had lost its homeland and the human who was pressing forward, which in turn made the impression of the tiger even worse.
Although the idiom says "fear like a tiger" and regards the "jackal" as the most greedy beast, in fact, as François Russell said in "Misinterpreting Nature", "Tigers are full of fear of humans, and attacks initiated by them are extremely rare, and they are often just individual behaviors that are deeply threatened by unexpected encounters with humans." "If tigers attack people, it's often that they feel that their territory has been invaded by people.
"Misinterpreting Nature"
Written by François Russell and Laurent Garriger, translated by Zhao Yifan
Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2013-8
At the same time, with the introduction of Buddhism, the image of the tiger was further degraded. Chen Huaiyu said in his book Animals and the Political and Religious Order of the Middle Ages: "It is basically certain that as an animal of the Six Paths of Animal Life, the tiger appeared in early Buddhist texts as an evil animal. ”
Buddhist monks with high magic appeared in the image of "descending the dragon and ambushing the tiger", but Chen Huaiyu also found that the monks did not purely surrender to the tiger, "but should regard the tiger as the dharma companion and disciple of the lonely monastic monk", and in the Tang Dynasty, it was more clear that the tiger also had Buddha nature, and the Tang Dynasty even developed a new tradition, that is, "tiger" as the good name for monks, "Vinaya" is to praise monks who are proficient in legalism, and scholars who are proficient in righteousness are often called "righteous tigers" or "righteous dragons".
Animals and the Political and Religious Order of the Middle Ages
By Chen Huaiyu
Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2020-12
In the "Taiping Guangji" contains a lot of stories related to the tigers of the five generations of the Tang Dynasty, some scholars have analyzed the tiger and found that "there are many people who have moved the tiger to give up the legend of eating people with virtue, either by reciting buddhist scriptures and retreating from the tiger, or by sincere filial piety to move the tiger to become a Buddha, and most of the story recorders are convinced of this, reflecting the delicate relationship between the five generations of the Tang Dynasty and animals."
Because in the traditional moral belief, the "tiger plague" is actually "the induction of nature caused by the human order and moral corruption", so the abnormalities in the natural world are caused by the moral corruption of the human world.
However, although this kind of "FuHu" story is promoting the moral indoctrination of high monks and filial piety, it seems that it can also be seen that the image of the tiger looks closer to a villain and unfilial son who is out of social order. In this case, it is already difficult to be respected, at most it is the object of moral induction, and when it cannot be influenced, it is natural to fight the tiger.
For an agricultural civilization, tigers thus became a potential threat to the lives of the people, and in the Song Dynasty, many tiger heroes finally appeared. Although there were already stories such as Feng Nü Fighting Tiger and Bian Zhuang Thorn Tiger as early as the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period, after the late Tang Dynasty, such tiger fighting heroes emerged in large numbers, and the five generations of fierce general Li Cunxiao was brave and brave, and it is said that he killed the evil tiger when he was a teenager.
But of course, the most famous is the story of Wu Song fighting the tiger, in fact, in the "Water Margin" such a deed is not only him, only Li Kui killed the four tigers, Xie Zhen and Xie Bao brothers are also hunters who killed tigers, and the Water Margin characters and Li Zhong are also nicknamed "Fighting Tiger Generals".
Liu Jijie's group painting "Wusong Fighting Tiger" with the theme of "Wusong Fighting Tiger" is the eleventh painting.
Not only in the Central Plains, but also in the nomadic people who originally revered tigers, they also learned to shoot tigers. The History of Liao, vol. 53, Lizhi VI: "On the ninth day of September, Tianzi led the tribes of his subjects to shoot tigers... Chinese is said to be a day that is 'bound to be left late'. The Khitan word "biri i", homologous to the Mongolian word "bars", means "tiger". Until the Yuan Dynasty, there were still many tigers in the Western Liao River Valley, and during the Yuan Dynasty, Songzhou Zhizhou servants scattered bald brothers "shot tigers before and after ten thousand counts, and gave the title of Ten Thousand Tiger Generals" ("Yuan Shi Shi Zu Ji" to the autumn and July of the eighteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty).
In this way, with the intensification of environmental development, the tiger and the human race for survival have begun, except for a very small number of remote ethnic groups that still respect its divinity, and in more and more places, it has become an obstacle for human beings to continue to develop nature, and they are constantly hunted and killed. That's why historian Robert Marks sees tiger activity as a barometer of human invasion and destruction of the natural environment.
How did tigers become rare animals?
The indiscriminate hunting and killing of tigers has long shown that the ecological environment is deteriorating. In the prosperous era of Kangqian, the population increased significantly, and a large number of people went deep into the mountains and forests in order to make a living, so that the miscellaneous forests that had previously played the role of a buffer zone between man and tiger disappeared, and the number of tigers has decreased sharply since then.
The Mulan Paddock was the royal hunting ground of the Qing Dynasty, and 9 tigers, 10 wild boars and 3 bears were hunted during the Kangxi Thirty-first Year (1692) Siege; only 1 tiger and 8 wild boars were hunted during the Qianlong Siege, and there were no bears at all. After reviewing the changes in the zoogeography and environment of the Xiliao River Basin, some scholars have concluded that this area "after the middle of the Qing Dynasty and the 19th and early 20th centuries, large predators such as tigers and leopards rapidly decreased to the point of complete disappearance, which is closely related to the large number of inland populations migrating to the Western Liao River Basin after the middle of the Qing Dynasty." ”
Despite this, at that time, in the deep mountains and old forests, there were still many tigers. Wang Hao's Suiluan Ji'en records that in the forty-second year of Kangxi (1703), he hunted the Siberian tiger several times in the southern section of Daxing'anling; on the third day of September of that year, in Uriastai, the crown prince (Yongzheng) hunted the Siberian tiger, "Shangfeng and Guan." Oracle: ... There are one hundred and nine tigers who have been killed, and the crown prince has also killed dozens, and since the fourteenth brother has been above, all of them have killed tigers." In the Qing Dynasty, the forest coverage rate in southwest China was more than 50%, and until the beginning of the 20th century, 72 Tingzhou counties in Sichuan were still infested with South China tigers, 54 Tingzhou counties in Yunnan were at least infested with South China tigers and Indochinese tigers, and at least 27 Tingzhou counties in Guizhou were infested with South China tigers.
Siberian tiger. Tigers were once widely distributed in all provinces of China. /pixabay
As far as the number of tiger subspecies is concerned, China originally ranked first in the world, in terms of distribution, in addition to Taiwan, Hainan across the sea without tigers, China's provinces were once tiger townships, from the subarctic Xiaoxing'an Mountains to the subtropical Xishuangbanna widely distributed, which is unmatched by any tiger-producing country.
Among the more than 2,100 county-level administrative units in the country, about 1,100 have had the distribution of tigers, accounting for about 55% of the total number of county-level units in the country, of which: 6 counties and cities of the nominated subspecies, 77 counties and cities of the northeast subspecies, 208 counties and cities of the North China subspecies, 28 counties and cities of the northwest subspecies, 820 counties and cities of the South China Subspecies, and 27 counties and cities of the Yunnan Asian species, for a total of 1166 county-level units.
As agricultural development progressed, tigers gradually disappeared everywhere. Many people don't know that there were tigers even in Shanghai: in the 1430s and 1760s, the South China tiger was active in The Shanghai area 13 times, including 8 times in the Ming Dynasty and 5 times in the Qing Dynasty, but it has not been seen since. In the late Qing Dynasty and modern times, missionaries traveling in remote areas of China generally carried weapons, and in order to guard against wild beasts and bandits, in one quarter, 12 tigers were killed on the outskirts of Fuzhou alone.
The recorded years of tiger fighting in the suburbs of various cities in China are: Xiamen 1870, 1895, 1897, 1925, Ningbo 1875, Hangzhou 1880, Fuzhou 1894, Nanjing 1895, Anqing 1925, etc. In the early 1930s, Hong Kong also discovered tigers that had been swept up by the mainland. As late as 1948, a tiger was also hit near Nanchang.
Although tigers gradually disappeared on the outskirts of the city, until 1950, there were 133 remaining South China tigers, which were mainly distributed in the remote mountainous areas south of the main stream of the Yangtze River, south China and southwest.
By the end of 1990-1991, WWF surveys estimated that there might be only 30-50 wild tigers left in China. On May 29, 1993, the State Council officially banned any tiger trade.
Just a hundred years ago, there were as many as 100,000 wild tigers in the world, but now there are only about 3,200 left. In the past three decades, there have been no credible sightings of wild South China tigers, and it is highly likely to be extinct, leaving only the Border of Heilongjiang and Jilin with the Occasional Entry of Siberian Tigers from Russia.
A rescued tiger with its front paws trapped in a hunting holster. /WWF
Under such a rapid extinction crisis, the tiger has now become one of the most endangered and rare animals, but its population recovery is still very difficult. Because as a top carnivore that uses 0.0001 of the energy generated by plants, it ultimately has to rely on a sparse distribution density and a wide range of activities to survive. Modern research has shown that under good conditions, an area of roughly 20 to 100 square kilometers is needed to support a tiger.
This means that the protection of tigers alone cannot save their danger, and there can be no tigers without the existence of large areas of mountains and forests with good ecological environments. Conversely, the disappearance of the tiger indicates that the good ecology that can support it has ceased to exist. This is a new understanding of the human-tiger relationship from an ecological perspective: to save the tiger is to save the ecology on which we also depend.
bibliography:
[1] "In the ancient Near and Middle East, tigers had little place in people's religious life, and the animal was barely mentioned in ancient Egyptian, Hittite, Akkadian, Hebrew, and other languages, and the animals such as bulls, horses, sheep, and falcons appeared more frequently. See Chen Huaiyu: Animals and the Political and Religious Order of the Middle Ages, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2012, p. 154.
[2] Wei Genshen, Handbook of Chinese Historical Research, translated by Hou Xudong et al., Peking University Press, 2016, p. 803. Lions are often depicted in European paintings, and tigers are rarely seen. Tigers in Western Europe are only recently exhibited as zoo animals: "The first tiger seen by Europeans over the years traveled across the Italian peninsula and finally settled in Turin in 1478. See [French] Eric Balatee et al., History of the Zoo, translated by Qiao Jiangtao, CITIC Publishing House, 2006, p. 43. In addition, although there were Caspian tigers in Central Asia until 1970, the image of the tiger is not seen in Scythian art, "but eagles, leopards and deer have always retained their main position in Scythian artistic expression", see Zhang Wenling: "Golden Grassland: Exploring the Culture of Ancient Eurasian Grassland", Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, p. 188.
[3] Constance Mary Tempurl, A History of Singapore, translated by Ouyang Min, 2013, p. 5.
[4] [Su] V. K. Arsenyev, In the Wild Forests of Ussuri: An Adventure in the Ussuri Mountains, People's Literature Publishing House, 2005, p. 62. The Chronicle of Haicheng County (1937 edition) of Liaoning Province records: "The eastern part of this territory is mountainous, worshipping mountain gods, and suppressing tigers and wolves and beasts of prey... The inhabitants of the mountain called the tiger the god of the mountain, and built a temple to worship it. "Chronicle of Baoqing County" (1964 mimeograph) of Heilongjiang Province: "The residents of the mountains are most afraid of tigers, so they call the tiger 'mountain gods', so they set up a temple to worship it." See Jiang Fan: Manchu Ecology and Folk Culture, China Social Science Press, 2006, pp. 158-159. Guo Jingyun also said: "In ancient times, the areas where tigers were worshipped, mainly In Northern Manchuria, including the ancient Goryeo people, the Hezhe people, the Udegai people, the Urqi, the Negidar people and other Tungusic peoples, all regarded the tiger as their ancestor. In Tunguska mythology and shamanic rituals, the tiger must be a mythical beast of high status. See Guo Jingyun, "Heavenly Gods and the Way of Heaven and Earth: Tracing the Origin of Wu Yi's Faith and Traditional Thought", Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2016, p. 346.
[5] Zhao Aping, Manchu Language and History, Minzu Publishing House, 2006, p. 219.
[6] Song Zhaolin, The Last Hunter, Shandong Pictorial Publishing House, 2001, p. 324.
[7] Suffragette, Manchu Language and History, p. 70.
[8] Shirokogoroff, S.M. Organization of the Northern Tunugus, Shanghai,1924。 This custom is also found in the Korean Peninsula, such as Wei Shenggong's "Records of the Old Stories of the Chicken Forest" (1913): "There are hundreds of beasts in the mountains, tigers and leopards are common beasts, not very fearful, often looking at people, people do not hurt, nor hurt people." Bears are the fiercest, they are all hurtful, and they are good at fighting hunters. ”
[9] ChihiroKo Ida, "Korea's Tiger Faith: The Significance of the Tiger in Cultural History", in Tao Lipan, ed., "Proceedings of the International Academic Conference on Asian Folklore", Xueyuan Press, 2002, pp. 241, 246.
[10] Zhang Guangzhi: Shang Civilization, translated by Zhang Liangren, Liaoning Education Publishing House, 2002, pp. 127, 199
[11] Guo Jingyun, "The Gods and the Way of Heaven and Earth", pp. 252, 306.
[12] Guo Jingyun, "The Gods and the Way of Heaven and Earth," pp. 306-307.
[13] Liu Yi et al., eds., Living in the Jungle Mountains and Rivers: Gathering Fishing and Hunting for Ethnic Groups in Yunnan, Yunnan Education Publishing House, 2000, p. 117.
[14] Jike Erda Zegang Dictated: "I Am Between Gods and Ghosts: A Self-Description of a Yi Priest", Yunnan People's Publishing House, 1990, p. 165. Li Genpan and Lu Xun, "Primitive Agricultural Forms of Ethnic Minorities in Southern China", also mention that in the founding myths of the Yi people and so on, the body parts of the tiger or red deer become heaven and earth, Agricultural Publishing House, 1987, pp. 517-518.
[15] Lahu Brief History Writing Group: A Brief History of the Lahu People, Minzu Publishing House, 2008, p. 5.
[16] Wang Xiaodun, A Study of Early Chinese Thought and Symbols: On the Origin and Formation of the Four Gods, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2008, p. 313.
[17] Ibid., p. 156.
[18] Guo Jingyun, p. 338.
[19] Li Xueqin, "On the Tiger Cannibalism", Sichuan University Museum, Ancient Chinese Copper Drum Research Society, eds., Southern Ethnic Archaeology, Vol. 1, Sichuan University Press, 1987, p. 43.
[20] Guo Jingyun, cited in the book, pp. 345, 351, 367.
[21] Guo Jingyun, cited in the book, p. 408. According to the "Wu Yue Spring and Autumn Volume 10 Gou Jian Wu Wai Biography": "Lu Lu died and was buried in the northwest of the country, named Tiger Hill. Through the soil for the river, the soil for the hill... Three days after the burial, the golden essence was raised to the white tiger tomb, so it was called tiger hill. This may also indicate that in the State of Wu at that time, the tiger was closely related to the royal power. Fan Zeng said of Xiang Yu in the "History of Xiang Yu Benji": "When Pei Gong lived in Shandong, he was greedy for goods and goods, and he was very beautiful. Now that we have entered the customs, we have nothing to gain from our belongings, and we have no luck for women. I am looking forward to it, all are dragons and tigers, into five cai, this Tianzi qi also. Don't lose it in a hurry. It can be seen that the spirit of the dragon and tiger is still the symbol of the emperor.
[22] Chen Lüfan believes that this is the result of the influence of the Central Plains culture, citing "the Worship of elephants by the Tai people, and there has never been a custom of decorating tiger skins". See Chen Lüfan, "A Brief Analysis of Important Cultural Relics of the Dali State of Nanzhao", in Collected Essays on the Origin of the Tai Nationality and the Study of the Nanzhao State, Vol. 1, China Book Publishing House, 2005, p. 331.
[23] Chinese Jin Yu II: "Yu Gong dreamed in the temple, there was a god and a man with a white haired tiger claw, and he stood in Xi'a. ”
[24] An example is the Taoist holy land of Longhu Mountain in Jiangxi, huainanzi astronomical training: "The tiger roars and the valley wind arrives." ”
[25] Victor Turner, Ritual Processes: Structure and Anti-Structure, translated by Huang Jianbo and Liu Boyun, Chinese Min University Press, 2006, p. 176.
[26] Guo Jingyun, p. 307.
[27] Wen Mengjun: "Curse Language", Xinhua Publishing House, 1998, pp. 59-60.
[28] See Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms and The Biography of Dongyi, see Wang Zijin, Ecological Environment in the Qin and Han Dynasties, p. 198.
[29] Chen Huaiyu, Animals and the Political and Religious Order of the Middle Ages, p. 177.
[30] Li Bincheng, History of Social Life in the Five Dynasties of sui and Tang dynasties, China Social Sciences Press, 2004, p. 152.
[31] Chen Huaiyu, cited in the book, p. 161.
[32] Chen Huaiyu, cited in the book, pp. 160, 196, 220.
[33] Ma Qiang, A Study on The Geographical Understanding of Western China during the Tang and Song Dynasties, People's Publishing House, 2009, p. 171.
[34] Li Wenhai and Xia Mingfang, "The Heavens Have a Fierce Year: Disasters and Famines in the Qing Dynasty and Chinese Society", Sanlian Bookstore, 2007, p. 450.
[35] Reprinted from The Year of Heaven, p. 439.
[36] Wang Lihua, ed., Environment and Society in Chinese History, Sanlian Bookstore, 2007, p. 539.
[37] Deng Hui, "Research on environmental change in Mulan Paddock in the Qing Dynasty", in Hou Renzhi and Deng Hui, eds., "Research Papers on Environmental Change in the Historical Period of Arid and Semi-Arid Areas of Northern China", The Commercial Press, 2006, p. 445.
[38] Wang Shouchun, "Zoogeography and Environmental Change in the Xiliao River Basin since the Middle Holocene", in Collected Essays on Environmental Change in the Historical Period of Arid and Semi-Arid Areas of Northern China, p. 370.
[39] Reprinted from He Yeheng, The Historical Changes of chinese tigers and Chinese bears, Hunan Normal University Press, 1996, p. 14.
[40] Lan Yong, "Economic Development and Ecological Change in Southwest China in the Historical Period", Yunnan Education Press, 1992, p. 53.
[41] Supra citation, The Historical Changes of the Chinese Tiger and the Chinese Bear, pp. 1 and 6.
[42] Supra citation, The Historical Changes of the Chinese Tiger and the Chinese Bear, p. 173.
[43] Edward Brith Jr., Forty Years of Shao Wu: A Journey of the American Missionary Physician Fu Yihua to China, 1892-1932, translated by An Wen, 2015, p. 164.
[44] Ma Jianzhang and Jin Kun, Tiger Research, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, 2003, pp. 127-128.
[45] Supra citation, "The Historical Changes of the Chinese Tiger and the Chinese Bear," p. 180.
[46] [American] Edward M. O. Wilson, Social Biology: A New Synthesis, Beijing Institute of Technology Press, 2008, pp. 32-33.
[47] Ma Libo, "Tiger, Rice, Silk, and Mud: The Environment and Economy of Southern China in the Late Imperial Period", Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2010, p. 43.
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